System and method for automated customer feedback

ABSTRACT

A system and method for automated customer feedback allows for automatically collecting and analyzing customer feedback data regarding customer satisfaction and customer task completion with respect to self-service applications and live agents. When contacting a customer service center, customers provide one or more customer tasks. The customers are routed within the customer service center based on the customer task and/or one or more customer characteristics. While interacting with the customer service center, the customers are automatically asked one or more specific survey questions relating to the customers&#39; interaction with the customer service center and the customers&#39; satisfaction levels. The customers provide one or more survey responses to the survey questions. The survey responses are recorded and analyzed in order to modify and update the customer service center and the survey questions in order to increase customer satisfaction and increase customer task completion.

REFERENCE TO PREVIOUSLY FILED APPLICATIONS

The present patent application is a continuation of a previously filedpatent application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/983,789, filedJan. 3, 2011, which is a continuation of previously filed U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/436,743, filed May 13, 2003, the entirety ofwhich are both hereby incorporated by reference. Pursuant to 37 CFR§1.78(a)(3), an application data sheet containing a reference to thepreviously filed applications, unless submitted previously, is submittedcontemporaneously herewith.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to telecommunication services,and more specifically relates to a system and method for automatedcustomer feedback.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Customers often call a company service call center or access a company'sweb page to perform a specific customer task such as change theiraddress, pay a bill, alter their existing services, or receiveassistance with problems or questions regarding a particular product orservice. When calling, the customers may either speak with customerservice representatives (CSR), also known as agents, or interact with anautomated self-service application such as an interactive voice response(IVR) system. Because of the high costs associated with live serviceagents and because companies often do not employ enough agents to handleall the customers during peak customer calling times, companies aretransitioning many of the customer tasks performed by agents to beprimarily performed by the automated self-service applications.Therefore, the customers typically do not interact with a live personwhile performing the customer task when using the automated self-serviceapplications. Because the customers do not interact with a live agentwhile performing customer tasks, the companies do not know if thecustomers actually accomplish their customer tasks and the satisfactionlevels of customers. Therefore, many companies typically assume that thecustomers are completing customer tasks using the automated self-serviceapplications and that the customers are satisfied whether or not theassumption is actually correct.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the present embodiments and advantagesthereof may be acquired by referring to the following description takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencenumbers indicate like features, and wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of an example embodiment of a systemfor automated customer feedback;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example customer servicesystem; and

FIGS. 3A and 3B depict a flow diagram of an example embodiment of amethod for automated customer feedback.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Preferred embodiments of the present invention are illustrated in thefigures, like numerals being used to refer to like and correspondingparts of the various drawings. When customers call a customer servicecenter or call center seeking to perform a customer task, the customersare increasingly interacting with an automated self-service applicationinstead of live agents. An automated self-service application is asystem consisting of a plurality of menus and user prompts designed andarranged in a hierarchical design. When a customer calls a customerservice number or accesses a customer service web site, the customer isgreeted with an automated system asking the customer to supply suchinformation as the customer's account number or telephone number. Theautomated self-service application provides one or more options arrangedin a menu to the customer and asks the customer to pick the option thatmost closely relates to the purpose of the customer's call. For example,the automated self-service application may ask the customer if thecustomer would like to pay a bill, alter their service, change theiraddress, or learn about new products and services. The customer respondsto the menu prompt by either speaking the response if the automatedself-service application utilizes speech recognition technology or bytouch tone response by pressing the number keys on the telephone. Theautomated self-service application continues providing menu prompts tothe customer and the customer continues responding to the menu promptsuntil the customer is able to complete the customer's task and then thecustomer exits the automated self-service application.

Automated self-service applications reduce costs for companies becausethe customers are moved away from expensive live agents to inexpensiveautomated applications. In addition, self-service applications have thepossibility of maintaining high customer task completion, increasingcustomer satisfaction, and shortening the average call duration in thecustomer call center if the customers are satisfied and accomplishingtheir customer tasks.

Typically, companies do not know if the customers have completed theircustomer tasks using the self-service applications and how satisfied thecustomers are using the self-service applications. Therefore, automatedself-service applications are generally assumed to be successful inallowing the customers to accomplish their customer tasks and increating a high level of customer satisfaction in the customers. Butthat is a major assumption considering how many companies aretransitioning a majority of customer tasks to the self-serviceapplication away from the live agents and given the large volume ofcustomer inquiries received by customer call centers. If customers arenot satisfied using the self-service application and/or are notcompleting their customer tasks while using the self-serviceapplications, then the self-service applications are actually creatingunsatisfied customers and costing the companies additional money.Additional money spent by the companies in having to utilize expensivelive agents to help the customers who are not completing customer tasksin the self-service application. Furthermore, because customers arehaving to interact with both the self-service application and liveagents, calls are taking longer than customers typically expect.Therefore, customers may leave for competitors because of low levels ofcustomer satisfaction and unnecessarily long call durations.

Occasionally, companies make an attempt to gather information regardingtask completion and customer satisfaction regarding the self-serviceapplications. Typically live agents ask the customers questionsregarding customer task completion and customer satisfaction after acustomer has interacted with a self-service application. Buttransferring the customer to an, agent after the customer interacts withan automated system is an unreliable and inconsistent approach fordetermining customer task completion and customer satisfaction. Agentsare not always available to ask the customer satisfaction questions whena customer completes a customer task in the self-service application.Furthermore, some customers may find it frustrating and unusual toperform a customer task using an automated self-service application andthen be transferred to an agent to determine customer satisfaction andtask completion. Customers may become frustrated or confused when thecustomer may have preferred to talk to an agent instead of theself-service application while performing the customer task and onlygets to speak with an agent in order to answer a few questions regardingcustomer satisfaction. In addition, having agents record data regardingcustomer satisfaction and customer task completion often results ininconsistent and incomplete data due to human error and bias. Forinstance, each agent may ask the questions differently, record theanswers differently, and use different scales when recording thecustomers' responses to the questions. In addition, some agents may onlyrecord the good or favorable responses and omit any negative orunfavorable responses thereby skewing the results. Furthermore, usingagents is expensive and may be cost prohibitive to the company becauseof the high costs associated with agent time.

Instead of transferring the customer to an agent after the customer hascompleted a customer task using the self-service application, companiesmay also contact various customers one to four weeks after the customerinquiry and ask the customer numerous questions regarding customer taskcompletion and customer satisfaction. But customers generally do notremember the details regarding a phone call they made one to four weeksago and therefore cannot provide accurate responses to the questions.Furthermore, if a customer does remember any details it is usuallybecause the customer had a negative experience and therefore the resultsare skewed towards only the negative experiences. In addition, manycustomers may find it bothersome to be called at home or work and beasked numerous questions regarding a phone call they do not remember.

By contrast, the example embodiment described herein allows for theautomatic collection and analysis of customer feedback. The exampleembodiment allows for the collection of customer feedback uponcompletion by the customers of one or more customer tasks but before thecustomers terminate the inbound inquiry into the customer servicecenter. Because the customers are automatically asked customersatisfaction or survey questions after completing or attempting tocomplete a customer task, the experience is fresh with the customers andtherefore the customers are able to provide accurate and relevantcustomer feedback. Furthermore, since the agents are not involved incollecting the customer feedback, the costs associated with collectingcustomer feedback are reduced. The analysis of the customer feedbackallows for the customer feedback to be incorporated into theself-service applications for improvement and allow for greater customertask completion and higher levels of customer satisfaction. Theautomated collection of customer feedback allows for customer feedbackto be collected at a much higher rate than if manually collected by theagents. Therefore, the customer feedback collected is more accuratebecause it is drawn from a larger group of customers whereby theanalysis of the customer feedback results in greater customer acceptanceand satisfaction with respect to automated self-service applications.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a schematic diagram of an example embodiment ofa system for automated customer feedback is depicted. Customer servicesystem 10 includes three customer premise equipment 12, 14, and 16 andcustomer feedback system 18 with customer premise equipment 12, 14, and16 in communication with customer feedback system 18 via network 20.Customer premise equipment (CPE), also known as subscriber equipment,include any equipment that is connected to a telecommunications networkand located at a customer's site. CPEs 12, 14, and 16 may be telephones,56k modems, cable modems, ADSL modems, phone sets, fax equipment,answering machines, set-top box, POS (point-of-sale) equipment, PBX(private branch exchange) systems, personal computers, laptopcomputers/personal digital assistants (PDAs), SDRs other nascenttechnologies/or any other appropriate type or combination ofcommunication equipment installed at a customer's or caller's site. CPEs12, 14, and 16 may be equipped for connectivity to wireless or wirelinenetworks, for example via a public switched telephone network (PSTN)digital subscriber lines (DSLs), cable television (CATV) lines, IPtelephony, or any other appropriate communications network. In theexample embodiment of FIG. 1, CPEs 12, 14, and 16 are shown astelephones but in other embodiments may be any other appropriate type ofcustomer premise equipment.

Telephones 12, 14, and 16 are located at the customer's premise. Thecustomer's premise may include a home, business, office, or any otherappropriate location where a customer may desire telecommunicationsservices. Customer feedback system 18 is remotely located fromtelephones 12, 14, and 16 and is typically located within a company'scustomer service center or call center which may be in the same ordifferent geographic location as telephones 12, 14, and 16. Thecustomers or callers interface with customer feedback system 18 usingtelephones 12, 14, and 16. The customers and telephones 12, 14, and 16interface with customer feedback system 18 and customer feedback system18 interfaces with telephones 12, 14, and 16 through network 20. Network20 may be a public switched telephone network, the Internet, a cablenetwork, a wireless network, or any other appropriate type ofcommunication network. Although only one customer feedback system 18 isshown in FIG. 1, in other embodiments customer feedback system 18 mayserve alone or in conjunction with additional customer feedback systemslocated in the same customer service center or call center as customerfeedback system 18 or in a customer service center or call centerremotely located from customer feedback system 18. In addition, althoughthree telephones 12, 14, and 16 are shown in FIG. 1, in otherembodiments customer service system 10 may include more than three orless than three telephones.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of customer feedback system 18 ingreater detail. In the example embodiment, customer feedback system 18may include respective software components and hardware components, suchas processor 22, memory 24, input/output ports 26, hard disk drive (HDD)28 containing databases 30 and 32, and those components may worktogether via bus 34 to provide the desired functionality. In otherembodiments, HDD 28 may contain more than two or less than twodatabases. The various hardware and software components may also bereferred to as processing resources. Customer feedback system 18 may bea personal computer, a server, or any other appropriate computing devicewith a network interface for communicating over networks such as thetelephone communication networks, the Internet, intranets, LANs, or WANsand located at a location remote from telephones 12, 14, and 16.Customer feedback system 18 also includes receiving device 42 as well asparsing module 36, track module 38, and satisfaction module 40, whichreside in memory such as HDD 28 and are executable by processor 22through bus 34. Customer feedback system 18 may further include anautomated speech recognition (ASR) engine and a text to speech (TTS)engine that enable customer service system 10 to utilize a speechrecognition interface with the customers on telephones 12, 14, and 16.The ASR engine allows customer feedback system 18 to recognize thespeech or utterances provided by the customers in response to one ormore prompts while the TTS engine allows customer feedback system 18 toplayback to the customers in prompts variable data, such as datareturned from a database search.

Receiving device 42 communicates with I/O ports 26 via bus 34 and inother embodiments there may be more than one receiving device 42 incustomer feedback system 18 and customer service system 10. One suchtype of receiving device is an automatic call distribution system(“ACD”) that receives plural inbound telephone calls and thendistributes the inbound telephone calls to agents or automated systems.Another type of receiving device is a voice response unit (“VRU”) alsoknown as an interactive voice response system (“IVR”). When a call isreceived by a VRU, the caller is generally greeted with an automatedvoice that queries the caller for information and then routes the callbased on the information provided by the caller. When inbound telephonecalls are received, typically VRU and ACD systems employ identificationmeans to collect caller information such as automated numberidentification (“ANI”) information provided by telephone networks thatidentify the telephone number of the inbound telephone call. Inaddition, VRUs may be used in conjunction with ACDs to provide customerservice.

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate a flow diagram of one embodiment of a methodfor automated customer feedback. The method allows for the automatedcollection and analysis of customer feedback. The method begins at step60 and at step 62 receiving device 42 through I/O ports 26 receives oneor more inbound inquiries from one or more customers. The customerscontact customer feedback system 18 via receiving device 42 over network20 using telephones 12, 14, or 16 by calling a customer servicetelephone number. The customers may also access customer feedback system18 by utilizing computers and the Internet by sending email or accessinga web site. In the embodiment shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the inboundinquiry is a telephone call but in other embodiments the inbound inquirymay be an email, an access of an Internet web site, instant messaging,or any other appropriate inbound inquiry into customer feedback system18.

Once the customer's call has been received by receiving device 42,parsing module 36 queries the customer for customer identificationinformation and retrieves one or more customer characteristics regardingthe customer at step 64. Customer characteristics may include customername, address, telephone number, account information, account status,account activity, customer status (premium or standard customer), andany other appropriate information regarding the customer. For example,parsing module 36 may ask the customer for the customer's name,telephone number, account number, or any other appropriate informationthat will assist parsing module 36 in the recognition of the customer.In other embodiments, parsing module 36 may utilize ANI in order toobtain the telephone number of the customer and thereby determine theidentity of the customer. Parsing module 36 uses the customeridentification information to search a database of customer information,such as database 30 or 32, in order to retrieve the customercharacteristics of the calling customer.

At step 66 parsing module 36 queries the customer for the customer task.The customer task is the reason or purpose for the customer incontacting customer feedback system 18. For example, a customer task maybe to pay a bill, update or change customer account information, modifythe customer's service, request information on new products and service,or any other appropriate reason for contacting a customer servicecenter. Parsing module 36 queries the customer for the customer task byasking the customer for the purpose of the call. If customer servicesystem 10 is equipped with speech recognition technology, then thecustomer speaks the customer task. If customer service system 10 is notequipped with speech recognition technology or if the customer is notcomfortable speaking responses, then the customer can provide thecustomer task through touch tone input. At step 68 parsing module 36receives the customer task from the customer and stores the customertask in database 32.

After parsing module 36 receives the customer task from the customer, atstep 70 parsing module 36 determines the correct routing for the inboundinquiry of the customer. When determining the correct routing, parsingmodule 36 may take into account only the customer task, only thecustomer characteristics, or a combination of the customer task and thecustomer characteristics. With respect to routing based on the customertask, some customer tasks may not be available with the automatedself-service application. Therefore if a customer has a customer taskthat cannot be performed with the self-service application, then parsingmodule 36 routes the customer to an agent. But if the customer task canbe performed within the self-service application, then parsing module 36routes the customer to the self-service application. The routing of theinbound inquiry may also be affected by the customer characteristics.For example, a premium customer or a customer who has a history ofspending a large amount of money may be routed directly to an agent andspecifically to one of the top agents so that the customer will receivethe best possible service. Furthermore, a premium customer may be routedto an agent even though the customer task for the premium customer isone that can be performed using the self-service application.

If at step 70 the customer is to be routed to an agent because of thecustomer task and/or the customer characteristics, then at step 72parsing module 36 routes the customer to an agent and the customerinteracts with the agent at step 74 whereby the agent assists thecustomer in completing the customer task. If an agent is not immediatelyavailable to speak with the customer, the customer holds in a queueuntil an agent becomes available to interact with the customer at step74. Once the customer finishes interacting with the agent at step 74,the agent disconnects from the customer (the customer remains connectedto customer feedback system 18) and parsing module 36 transfers thecustomer to step 84 to determine if the customer has completed thecustomer task and to potentially collect automated customer feedback asdescribed below.

If at step 70 the customer is to be routed to the self-serviceapplication because of the customer task and/or the customercharacteristics, then at step 76 parsing module 36 routes the customerto the self-service application and at step 78 the customer interactswith the self-service application. The customer interacts with theself-service application by responding to one or more menu promptsprovided by the self-service application. The menu prompts ask questionsof the customer and/or ask the customer for additional informationthereby enabling the customer to navigate the hierarchical menu designof the self-service application in order to accomplish the customertask. While the customer interacts with the self-service application, atstep 80 track module 38 monitors the customer's interaction and behaviorwithin the self-service application. Track module 38 monitors and storesin database 32 each selection or response made by the customer wheninteracting with the self-service application as well as the customer'snavigation of the menus within the self-service application.

Track module 38 has knowledge of the customer task supplied by thecustomer at step 66 from parsing module 36 and database 32. By comparingthe customer task with the customer's progression within theself-service application including the menus navigated by the customerwhere particular menus are associated with completion of each customertask, track module 38 determines when a customer completes a customertask at step 82 and stores the completed task with an association to thecustomer along with a notation that the task was completed in theself-service application in database 32. For example, the customer has acustomer task of paying a bill. Parsing module 36 routes the customer tothe self-service application where the customer navigates the menus inorder to arrive at a menu prompt where the customer is 5 able to providea credit card number in order to pay the bill. Track module 38determines that the customer is attempting to pay a bill so when trackmodule 38 detects that the customer has navigated to the menu promptrequesting the customer to provide a credit card number to pay a bill,track module 38 determines that the customer has completed the customertask when the customer provides the credit card number.

Once the customer completes or appears to complete a customer task atstep 74 with an agent or at step 82 within the self-service application,satisfaction module 40 queries the customer regarding completion of thecustomer task at step 84. At step 84 satisfaction module 40 prompts thecustomer asking if the customer has completed the purpose or reason forthe customer's query to the customer service center. If the customerresponds at step 84 that the customer has not completed the reason forcontacting customer feedback system 18, then at step 86 satisfactionmodule 40 communicates with track module 38 and searches database 32 inorder to determine if the customer completed a customer task whileinteracting with either an agent or the self-service application. If atstep 86 satisfaction module 40 determines that the customer has notcompleted a customer task, then track module 38 transfers the customerto step 72 so that the customer can interact with an agent in order tocomplete the customer task. At step 86 the customer is transferred to anagent instead of back into the self-service application when thecustomer has not completed a customer task at step 86 because typicallythe customer had been interacting with the self-service application andhad not been able to complete the customer task using the self-serviceapplication. It would be very frustrating to the customer who wasunsuccessful in completing the customer task using the self-serviceapplication to be transferred back to the self-service application toattempt for a second time to complete the customer task. Therefore, thetrack module 38 transfers the customer to an agent so that the agent canassist the customer in completing the customer task.

If at step 86 satisfaction module 40 determines from communicating withtrack module 38 and searching database 32 that the customer did completea customer task either through interaction with an agent or theself-service application, then the customer must have more than onecustomer task for which the customer contacted customer feedback system18. For instance, a customer may contact customer feedback system 18needing to both pay a bill and update her account information and mayonly communicate pay a bill as the customer task at step 66. Thereforethe customer interacts with the self-service application at step 78 andsuccessfully pays her bill and track module 38 determines that thecustomer completed a customer task and notes the completion of the task.At step 84 when asked if the.” purpose of the call has been completed,the customer replies no because although the customer has successfullycompleted a customer task (paid her bill), the customer has anadditional customer task to complete, here updating customer accountinformation. Therefore, at step 88 parsing module 36 queries thecustomer for the additional customer task and routes the customer toeither an agent or the self-service application depending on thecustomer task and/or the customer characteristics. The customer theninteracts with customer service system 18 in order to accomplish thecustomer task as described above.

If at step 84 the customer has accomplished the purpose for contactingcustomer service system 18, then at step 90 satisfaction module 40queries the customer regarding any additional customer tasks that needto be completed. A customer may decide that the reason for contactingcustomer service system 18 is complete at step 84 but then realize thatthere is one or more additional customer tasks to be completed. Or acustomer having two customer tasks may interpret the query at step 84 asonly referring to the first customer task and therefore answeraffirmatively with respect to completing the reason for contactingcustomer service system 18 while still having one or more customer tasksto complete. If the customer has one or more additional customer tasksat step 90, parsing module 36 determines that the customer has alreadycompleted at least one customer task and therefore at step 88 parsingmodule 36 queries the customer as to the additional customer task androutes The customer to either an agent or the self-service applicationto complete the additional customer task as described above.

If at step 90 the customer has no additional customer tasks, thecustomer maintains the connection with customer feedback system 18 whilesatisfaction module 40 selects one or more survey questions to ask thecustomer with respect to the customer's experiences and satisfactionregarding interaction with either an agent or the self-serviceapplication at step 92. The survey questions are self-service dependentand agent dependent. For instance, a customer using the self-serviceapplication to complete his customer task is not asked any surveyquestions regarding interaction with an agent while a customer whointeracts with an agent is not asked any survey questions relating tothe self-service application. Furthermore, the survey questions are alsotask dependent. Therefore, a customer is asked questions relating to theactual customer task performed by the customer. For example, if thecustomer used the self-service application to pay a bill, the customeris not asked any survey questions regarding using the self-serviceapplication to update customer account information. In addition to beingtask dependent and self-service/agent dependent, the survey questionsare also weighted so that responses to more heavily weighted surveyquestions may result in different routing or analysis versus the sameresponse to survey questions not as heavily weighted.

Satisfaction module 40 selects the survey questions from database 30.All of the survey questions are stored in database 30 and are searchableby customer task as well as self-service application and agent. Forinstance, if the customer task at issue is payment of a bill using theself-service application, satisfaction module 40 searches database 30for survey questions relating to the customer task of paying a billusing the self-service application. Furthermore, satisfaction module 40typically selects three survey questions to ask of each customer. Threesurvey questions is a good number to ask the customers because askingthree questions does not require too much of the customers' time andtherefore the customers are more likely to listen to the surveyquestions and actually provide responses instead of just hanging up orbecoming frustrated. In addition, asking three questions of eachcustomer allows for large pool of customer feedback data for analysispurposes. In other embodiments, satisfaction module 40 may select morethan three or less than three survey questions for each customer.Furthermore in other embodiments, the customers may be given the optionof whether or not they want to answer the survey questions beforesatisfaction module 40 retrieves the appropriate survey questions.Therefore, if the customers do not want to hear and answer the surveyquestions, satisfaction module 40 does not waste resources searching forsurvey questions.

The survey questions ask the customers about their satisfaction levelswith respect to their interaction with customer service system 18 aswell customer task completion. Typically, the survey questions are basedon the LICRA scale (1-5) where “1” is very satisfied and “5” is verydissatisfied. Three example survey questions are listed below:

Survey Question 1:

Did you accomplish your task today?

Press 1 for yes,

Press 2 if you partially completed your task,

Press 3 for no, you did not complete your task.

Press 9 to repeat this question.

Survey Question 2:

How satisfied were you with the touch tone system you used at thebeginning of your call today?

Press 1 for Very Satisfied,

Press 2 for Satisfied, Press 3 Neutral,

Press 4 for Dissatisfied,

Press 5 for Very Dissatisfied.

Press 9 to repeat this question.

Survey Question 3:

How satisfied were you with your overall experience today?

Press 1 for Very Satisfied,

Press 2 for Satisfied, Press 3 Neutral,

Press 4 for Dissatisfied,

Press 5 for Very Dissatisfied.

Press 9 to repeat this question.

Once satisfaction module 40 selects the appropriate survey questions forthe customer and the corresponding customer task, at step 94satisfaction module 40 checks to see if the customer has terminated theinbound inquiry to customer service system 18. After completing thecustomer tasks, many customers will terminate the telephone call becausethe customers do not want to be bothered by answering a few surveyquestions or do not realize that there are survey questions to answerafter they have completed the customer task. If a customer hasterminated the inbound inquiry at step 94, then at step 96 satisfactionmodule 40 locates the customer's telephone number using ANI if thecustomer's telephone number has not already been determined using ANIand contacts the customer via the customer's telephone number andcommunicates the selected survey questions to the 5 customer at step 98.In addition to the selected survey questions, satisfaction module 40 mayalso ask the customer survey questions relating to why the customerterminated the telephone call before being asked the survey questions.Furthermore, if the customer hangs up before completing a customer taskwhile interacting with the self-service application, track module 38monitors and records the customer hang up and using the customertelephone number retrieved using ANI, satisfaction module 40 contactsthe customer and asks the customer survey questions relating to why thecustomer hung up before completing the customer task.

If the customer has not terminated the inbound inquiry at step 94, thenat step 98 satisfaction module 40 communicates the selected surveyquestions to the customer. The customer provides one or more surveyresponses to the survey questions which are received by satisfactionmodule 40 at step 100 and stored in database 32 by satisfaction module40 at step 102. The survey responses collected and stored bysatisfaction module 40 relate to the customers' satisfaction withcustomer service system 18 as well as customer task completion regardingwhich tasks are being completed by the customers and which customerstasks are not being completed by the customers.

As stated above, each survey question has an assigned weighted valuebecause some survey questions are of more importance than other surveyquestions and are therefore weighted more heavily. Each of the moreheavily weighted survey questions has a threshold value for which if asurvey response exceeds the threshold, additional action is taken bysatisfaction module 40 to address the survey response above thethreshold. For instance, a question relating to interacting with anagent may ask the customer how satisfied they were with the demeanor ofthe agent. Because knowing if agents are rude to the customers is veryimportant to companies in the customer service business, this questionmay be weighted very heavily. A threshold for this question may beestablished at dissatisfied” so that a survey response of dissatisfied”or “very dissatisfied” is above the threshold for this survey question.Therefore if the customer's survey response to this survey question isat or above the threshold, the customer may be asked additionalquestions regarding the behavior or demeanor of the agent or immediatelytransferred to an agent so that all the information may be gatheredsurrounding the behavior of the agent.

At step 104, satisfaction module 40 examines the survey responses withrespect to the survey questions to determine if any of the surveyresponses exceed any thresholds values for any of the heavily weightedsurvey questions having a threshold value. If at least one of the surveyresponses exceeds at least one threshold value, then at step 106satisfaction module 40 asks the customer additional survey questionsrelating to the survey question having a survey response at or above thethreshold and then repeats steps 100, 102, and 104 until none of the ofthe survey responses exceed any threshold values and an adequate amountof data has been gathered by satisfaction module 40 regarding the surveyquestions above the thresholds. In other embodiments, the customer maybe immediately transferred to an agent instead of being asked additionalsurvey questions when at least one of the survey responses exceeds athreshold value.

Furthermore, in other embodiments the customer characteristics mayaffect how satisfaction module 40 responds to the survey responses at orabove a threshold. If a customer is a premium customer and has one ormore survey responses at or above a threshold, satisfaction module 40may immediately transfer the premium customer to an agent so that theagent can immediately deal with any problems experienced by the premiumcustomer whereas a non-premium customer having the exact same surveyresponse may only be asked additional survey questions by satisfactionmodule 40. In addition, for premium customers the threshold values forthe heavily weighted survey questions may be set at a lower value sothat any slightly negative survey response results in an immediatetransfer of the premium customer to an agent.

If at step 104 none of the survey responses exceed a threshold, then atstep 108 the customer hangs up and terminates the telephone call withcustomer service system 18. Once the customer has terminated thetelephone call, satisfaction module 40 analyzes the survey responsesincluding customer task completion data stored in database 32 in orderto determine any problems with the self-service application, any of theagents, or any of the survey questions. At step 112 satisfaction module40 utilizes the analysis of the survey responses to modify and updatethe self-service application including altering menu designs to make iteasier for customers to complete their customer tasks. The analysis ofthe survey responses can be used to locate one or more problems areaswithin the self-service application such as menus where customers getstuck or do not understand the menu prompts. In addition, the analysisof the survey responses may also be utilized to update and modify thesurvey questions so that the survey questions better capture informationregarding customer task completion and customer satisfaction.

Satisfaction module 40 may also make recommendations for ways for theagents to modify their behavior so that they are more appealing andfriendly to the customers. Satisfaction module 40 continually analyzesthe survey responses and makes modifications to increase customersatisfaction and increase customer task completion. In otherembodiments, survey questions may be asked of the customers after thecustomer have completed each customer task instead of waiting until thecustomers have completed all customer tasks before asking the surveyquestions. Furthermore, the survey questions may be asked of thecustomers at any stage within the interaction of the self-serviceapplication and not affect the customers' interaction with theself-service application. Even when the survey questions are asked atthe completion of the call, the survey questions do not affect theinteraction between the customer and customer feedback system 18.

It should be noted that the hardware and software components depicted inthe example embodiment represent functional elements that are reasonablyself-contained so that each can be designed, constructed, or updatedsubstantially independently of the others. In other embodiments,however, it should be understood that the components may be implementedas hardware, software, or combinations of hardware and software forproviding the functionality described and illustrated herein. In otherembodiments, systems incorporating the invention may include personalcomputers, mini computers, mainframe computers, distributed computingsystems, and other suitable devices.

Other embodiments of the invention also include computer-usable mediaencoding logic such as computer instructions for performing theoperations of the invention. Such computer-usable media may include,without limitation, storage media such as floppy disks, hard disks,CO-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, read-only memory, and random access memory; as wellas communications media such as wires, optical fibers, microwaves, radiowaves, and other electromagnetic or optical carriers.

In addition, one of ordinary skill will appreciate that otherembodiments can be deployed with many variations in the number and typeof devices in the system, the communication protocols, the systemtopology, the distribution of various software and data components amongthe hardware systems in the network, and myriad other details withoutdeparting from the present invention.

Although the present invention has been described in detail, it shouldbe understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can bemade hereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the inventionas defined by the appended claims.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. A call handling method, the method comprising:receiving, by an automated self-service application, from an interactivevoice response system, a call of a caller; presenting a user interfacemenu to the caller; before terminating the call, presenting to thecaller a set of survey questions concerning interaction of the callerwith the self-service application; receiving from the caller a responseto a question included in the set of survey questions; and altering, bythe interactive voice response system, the user interface menu based onthe response.
 22. The method of claim 21, wherein the question includedin the set of survey questions is based on a task, indicated by thecaller, associated with the call.
 23. The method of claim 21, furthercomprising obtaining caller identification information and using thecaller identification information to retrieve caller characteristics.24. The method of claim 23, wherein the caller characteristics includeaccount activity information.
 25. The method of claim 21, wherein thequestion included in the set of survey questions asks the caller toindicate a level of caller satisfaction.
 26. The method of claim 25,wherein the level of caller satisfaction is selected from a set ofdefined satisfaction levels.
 27. The method of claim 21, furthercomprising, responsive to determining that the response exceeds athreshold value, asking the caller additional survey questions.
 28. Amethod of improving caller satisfaction, the method comprising:receiving, by an automated self-service application, an inbound inquiryfrom an interactive voice response system, wherein the automatedself-service application is associated with a task indicated by acaller; presenting, by the automated self-service application, a userinterface menu to the caller; before terminating the inbound inquiry,asking the caller a set of survey questions regarding the automatedself-service application; receiving from the caller a response to atleast one of the survey questions; and updating, by the interactivevoice response system, the set of survey questions based at least inpart on the response.
 29. The method of claim 28, further comprisingstoring the response in a database.
 30. The method of claim 28, furthercomprising obtaining caller identification information and using thecaller identification information to retrieve caller characteristics.31. The method of claim 30, wherein the caller characteristics includeaccount activity information.
 32. The method of claim 30, wherein thecaller characteristics include caller status information indicative of apremium status of the caller.
 33. The method of claim 30, whereinrouting the call comprises routing the call based at least in part onthe caller characteristics.
 34. The method of claim 28, furthercomprising using automated number identification to determine theidentity of the caller and using the identity to retrieve callercharacteristics.
 35. A non-transitory computer readable storage mediumincluding processor executable instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:receiving, by an automated self-service application, from an interactivevoice response system, a call of a caller; presenting a user interfacemenu to the caller; before terminating the call, presenting to thecaller a set of survey questions concerning interaction of the callerwith the self-service application; receiving from the caller a responseto a question included in the set of survey questions; and altering, bythe interactive voice response system, the user interface menu based onthe response.
 36. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 35, wherein the operations include selecting a question includedin the set of survey questions based on a task, indicated by the caller,associated with the call.
 37. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 35, wherein the operations include obtainingcaller identification information and using the caller identificationinformation to retrieve caller characteristics.
 38. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 37, wherein the callercharacteristics include account activity information.
 39. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 35, wherein aquestion included in the set of survey questions asks the caller toindicate a level of caller satisfaction and wherein the level of callersatisfaction is selected from a set of defined satisfaction levels. 40.The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 35, whereinthe operations include asking the caller additional survey questionsresponsive to determining that the response exceeds a threshold value.